Two environmentalists write that they agree with the oil spill commission's assessment that the Macondo blowout was caused by systemic problems in the oil industry. One of the writers failed to note that one of the commission's members is president of the Natural Resources Defense Council for which the writer is a senior attorney. He also failed to note that the defense council has been a party to blocking oil and natural gas drilling onshore as well as offshore. The defense council has never seen an oil and gas well that it liked or thought was necessary.

It also wasn't noted that there wasn't one oil industry representative on the commission. They all had environmental backgrounds with no experience in the oil industry. Usually on such bodies, there are representatives of all the stakeholders. This enables a minority report to be published. They say they had access to the views of experts. I don't see much utilization of their opinions.

I guess the commission, the defense council and other environmental groups think that it was just pure luck that none of the 14,000 wells drilled in deepwater had no serious problems. A string of poor decisions together brought on the Macondo well disaster. But that is no reason to say that the entire industry is just as guilty. We had a moratorium, and now we have a permit-atorium not just on deepwater activity but also as to shallow water wells.

The Gulf Coast has suffered severe economic loss. The commission, the administration, the Natural Resources Defense Council and others are going to send us into an economic meltdown of historic proportions along with much higher gasoline prices. It's time to say that enough is enough. When machines and humans are involved, mistakes will be made. Because of the Macondo spill those mistakes are not likely to be repeated. So let's get on with developing our natural resources to the benefit of not only the Gulf Coast but for America.